


this is where he goes, when he has to go? this is his eternity?

by faedemon



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Introspection, M/M, Oops, POV Alternating, Prompt Fill, haven't read it in a year, i might be remembering wrong but i dont think they're in the book, the scenes this focuses on are tv-exclusive i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 08:05:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19352893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faedemon/pseuds/faedemon
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale witness Heaven and Hell in each other's skins, and they are similarly suffocating. Heaven is grand and empty and aching and Hell is frothing, seething, festering and they are much more like each other than they have any right to be. Hell arose as antithesis to Heaven, but they've never been opposites. Not really.An introspective piece that follows the show's timeline of Crowley and Aziraphale's trials in episode six.





	1. hell was hope before it rotted

**Author's Note:**

> this work is based on a tumblr post by forineffablereasons, and can be found [here](https://forineffablereasons.tumblr.com/post/185338099283/aziraphale-going-to-hell-for-the-very-first-time). i was really inspired by this post, and the fic ended up being more than i expected it to be—i only hope you all enjoy it. i've loved good omens for a very long time, and seeing the tv adaptation has been a joy. i'm glad neil gaiman himself got to write it.
> 
> it should be noted that most of the dialogue in this piece is lifted verbatim from episode six of the show, and many actions david tennant and michael sheen take are transcribed. i take no ownership of those. all introspective thoughts and original writing, however, are mine.
> 
> lastly, this work is cross-posted on FFN under the usernamed faedemonn. it can be found [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13574504/1/this-is-where-he-goes-when-he-has-to-go-this-is-his-eternity).

The prophecy five-thousand and four is what flutters into Aziraphale’s hand at the end of the end times. It descends unto him quite bluntly, quite pointedly, and Aziraphale may be a fool but he is not one to ignore the words of the one true prophet.

5004\. When alle is fayed and alle is done, ye  
must choofe your faces wisely, for soon enouff  
ye will be playing with fyre

The words are simple. They are the kind that one might find in a fortune cookie, if fortune cookies weren’t so boring nowadays, and they’re just abstract enough to give Aziraphale pause. Indeed, if Gabriel and Beelzebub didn’t interrupt and vehemently blame him and Crowley for stopping Armageddon, and if Satan didn’t pop in with bright, burning hellfire licking at his heels, Aziraphale might not have put it together at all.

 

* * *

 

“It all worked out for the best, though,” he says softly, sitting on a bench at a bus stop beside Crowley. It’s night, and for the first evening of the rest of their lives, it’s quite peaceful. There is a box between them and Aziraphale wishes distantly that it wasn’t there. Crowley feels too far away, somehow. Like he might slip away. “Just imagine how awful it might have been if we’d been at all competent.”

“Point taken,” Crowley concedes. “What’s that?” He nods toward the prophecy, clutched lightly in Aziraphale’s hand.

“It fell out of Agnes Nutter’s book,” Aziraphale says, handing over the scrap of paper, burnt ’round the edges. Crowley takes it with the hand not occupied with a bottle of something alcoholic.

“‘For soon enough you will be playing with fire…’” Crowley reads, knitting his brows as he looks down at it. He turns the paper over in his hand before looking at Aziraphale. “So this is the final one of Agnes’ prophecies?”

“As far as I know.”

“And Adam? Human again?”

“As far as I can tell, yes.” Aziraphale nods a little, as if to make it more true. They share a short moment of silence.

“Angel,” Crowley prompts, and Aziraphale meets his eyes as he leans back against the bench. He takes a swig and offers the bottle. Aziraphale takes it. “What if the Almighty planned it like this, all along? From the very beginning?” Something in his voice here is very soft, very hesitant.

Aziraphale looks off into the middle distance for a moment. “Could have,” he says, and he believes it. “I wouldn’t put it past her.” He raises the bottle to his lips and takes a drink. It’s wine. Good wine.

The thought is as bitter as it is comforting. If God had planned for Armageddon to be avoided all along, then surely she meant for he and Crowley to thwart it together. But, in the same way, if God had planned for Armageddon to be avoided all along, she had surely meant for Heaven and Hell to end up detesting them both.

Heaven has never been as kind a place as Earth is. But Heaven is home, just as it was when Earth was first formed, and for it to reject him is bittering as no human dish could be.

When the mailman leaves with his sword and the other artifacts of the horsemen, Aziraphale finds himself suddenly lost. He finds himself even more so when Crowley reminds him, gently, that his bookshop is in ashes.

And he finds himself suddenly, wretchedly found when Crowley _looks_ at him, in that way only he can. When he says, “You can stay at my place, if you like,” and Aziraphale squirms with the instinct to deny the offer. He knows before the words leave him that Heaven is not “his side” anymore, but it still takes Crowley’s voice and his eyes, boring into Aziraphale’s even through the glasses, to understand it.

“You don’t have a side anymore,” Crowley tells him, eyebrows creased. His voice is far more gentle, far more careful than any demon’s has a right to be.

 _Then again,_ Aziraphale thinks, _I suppose I’m not quite an angel if Heaven doesn’t want me. And he’s not quite a demon if Hell doesn’t want him._

“Neither of us do,” Crowley finishes, and it feels like truth. It feels like dripping, like pooling, like the _home_ has suddenly leaked out of Heaven. Aziraphale realizes, quite suddenly, and with all the clarity of fact, that Heaven hasn’t been home in a long time, not in the ways that matter. Looking at Crowley, taking in his hair and the lines on his face and the creases in his jacket, Aziraphale finds that home has been on Earth for eons. For millennia.

He realizes that home has been a kind and loving thing for just that long.

 

* * *

 

Aziraphale caught on that there would be some kind of retribution for him and Crowley the moment that Gabriel and Beelzebub agreed on something. When Satan rose with his torrents of fire, Agnes Nutter’s prophecy truly came to life in Aziraphale’s head—soon, his and Crowley’s mortal faces would be wanted, and Aziraphale himself would brace the fires of hell as punishment.

As such, Aziraphale devised a daring plan: until it is no longer necessary, he and Crowley would _swap appearances._ They would, in essence, be choosing their faces—though if it wise, Aziraphale has no way of knowing yet.

They do not truly swap bodies. It is merely a mirage—a good one, certainly, but a mirage nonetheless. Despite this, Aziraphale finds himself feeling rather peculiar, not unlike how he’d felt when he and Madame Tracy had joint control of her body.

In six thousand years, not once had Aziraphale been discorporated. He always imagined that, should it happen, he’d simply pick up his new assigned form and move on. Looking in a stupidly grand mirror in Crowley’s hallway, however, and seeing a different face looking back, makes Aziraphale realize that his human body had become _him_ in a way he hadn’t before been conscious of. It makes sense, suddenly, why his self-projection had mimicked his body after the portal had turned it to ash.

 _I think I understand now why humans are so concerned with identity and the body being intertwined,_ he thinks, running a hand down the skinny length of Crowley’s arm. A very good mirage, this, that he can even feel the fleshy difference between them.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you later.” Aziraphale turns from the mirror to face Crowley, who’s just spoken. He’s looking down, inspecting his (Aziraphale’s) hand.

“Are you… kicking me out?”

“Uh, no. Kicking myself out, actually,” Crowley says. Aziraphale creases his eyebrows in confusion. “This is _your_ house for the time being, _Crowley._ ”

“I—oh. Right.” Aziraphale clears his throat. “Yes, of course.” Crowley goes back to looking at his hands, rubbing one thumb over one of his palms. It might be cute, if Crowley weren’t wearing his skin.

Perhaps he is as unnerved with the change as Aziraphale is. It’s certainly odd to see his own body moving independently of his will, as logically as he knows that it’s Crowley standing before him.

“Keep my plants alive, would you?” Crowley asks as he heads for the door. Aziraphale nods, a slight smile gracing his face.

“Of course, dear.”

 

* * *

 

The head offices find them when they go for a discreet meeting over ice cream in St. James’ Park. It was inevitable, of course, but it is still truly alarming to watch Crowley, dressed in his clothes, be dragged away, gagged and bound at the wrists. Aziraphale cries out involuntarily, the “Stop! Stop them!” falling harsh and pleading from his lips. Perhaps, somewhere in him, he had hoped that Heaven and Hell would leave them be with the war averted. Perhaps, with no word from Heaven or Hell in almost twenty-four hours after the end of the end times, he had believed it.

His legs (Crowley’s legs) carry him forward of their own accord. He flings the popsicle aside, his only thought being to keep Heaven’s pristine, serrated hands away from Crowley, away from his only friend, and he curses the length of Crowley’s legs as he almost trips over them. Funny that they feel so long, for a mirage. An Asian woman in a smock watches him as he dashes forward, and he sees but does not register soon enough the dastardly smirk that crosses her face as he passes.

Then Hastur clocks him on the head with a crowbar and says, “What’s wrong, love?” to taunt him with menace, and he can only watch in swaying, distorted horror as Crowley is dragged further and further away. Further and further towards that white peak of nothing, the whole and hollow stomach that Heaven is.

Crowley told him that he hadn’t ever really meant to fall, a long time ago, when they were both very drunk. He’d said, in a hushed, hoarse voice, that Heaven was just too… big. Too echoing, and too gaping, too wide. He hadn’t been quite able to put it into words, then, and Aziraphale had hushed him. But.

 _But_ , he thinks he might understand what Crowley was getting at, then. Thinking of him, up in that great place, Aziraphale realizes just how sharp Heaven really is, and just how comforting Earth has been.

He wonders, distantly, which one Hell is more like.

 

* * *

 

Aziraphale hears Beelzebub’s voice echo down the hall. “Bring in the traitor,” she calls, to the mass muttering of the demons present. The atmosphere down here is thick enough to choke on. It’s the far, far opposite of Tadfield. As much as Adam Young loves his town, loves his Hogback Wood, the population of Hell despises this place a thousand times more.

As he is led toward the trial room, Aziraphale notes that Hell echoes just as much as Heaven does. It’s simply drowned out by the low, constant moans of agony and the occasional snap and spark of failing amenities.

The trial room (execution chamber?) is short, elevated at the back with stone stairs that seem more for decoration than any real function—though why _Hell_ would design anything with decoration in mind is rather beyond Aziraphale. At the very front of the room stands a stained claw-foot bathtub, and above it, a plexiglass window through which countless numbers of spectators watch. The walls bear dripping and drooling water damage stains, and plenty of tiles are missing or damaged.

Aziraphale never imagined Hell would be a happy place. He’d always thought of it as burning, as flames licking at the heels of the damned. It isn’t, though. Hell is damp. There’s a chill to the air, or the lack of it, for the oxygen in this place ran out a long time ago. This place, this maze of tunnels and rooms and locked doors, is like the manifestation of nausea. Of rage, bubbling and burning just beneath the skin, ready to break or boil at any moment. The tension that snaps along the lines of the underground is high, is aching, and Aziraphale can just _feel_ the itch. Hell itches, and it sways, and the hordes and masses of malevolence (not malevolence, not really. It’s frustration, and desire, and weakness. Hell is the want to be recognized. The feeling of worthlessness. The people here, or most of them, wouldn’t be evil if it wasn’t the job description. They just need something that Heaven couldn’t give them—wasn’t willing to give them) are baying like wolves before the hunt.

 _Yes,_ Aziraphale thinks. _Yes, that’s it. This is anticipation that pools at my feet. These people wanted the war so desperately because they had something to_ prove. _They had something they wanted Heaven, or perhaps the Almighty, to know._

It’s rather tragic that it took a jaunt downwards for Aziraphale to really _get_ it. He’s known Crowley for six thousand years and he’s never seen it before—but it makes _sense_. All the little things Crowley does for him—bailing him out of betrayal by the Nazis and saving his books in the meantime, ridding his coat of the stain from a paintball gun—these are things that an angel could never do. When Aziraphale had been cornered, a gun pointed to his head, he hadn’t expected any rescue. He knew full well that no angel would look twice at his predicament. They would simply issue him a new body later and wipe their hands of the problem, and why should he expect any more? Aziraphale is… used to it. He is used to the impersonality of Heaven’s affairs. And yet.

And yet, Hell’s demons have a loyalty that Heaven has never had. They speak highly of malevolence and mistrust, but here he is, at a trial wherein Hastur blames Crowley viciously for the death of a fellow demon. Of a friend, whether he’ll admit it or not. These people are snapping and sparking with emotion, with empathy, and they talk big about being cruel and callous but they are filled to the brim with potential. It’s still a horrible place—this kind of loyalty is sizzling, is the kind that kills without question, is the kind that digs under the skin and infects. Hell is a product of loss that has festered: Heaven did not listen, and over six thousand years of crying into an empty room has made Hell’s children cruel.

Whatever made the demons fall left them long ago, Aziraphale concludes. In the beginning, it must have been vibrant. Now, they’re left with just the old, rotting remnants which give them the capacity to hate, and Hell has become a putrid, crowded echo of Heaven.

Aziraphale wonders, suddenly, if Crowley knows how much he appreciates all that he’s done for him over the years. Because Aziraphale _does_ appreciate those little acts, truly, it is rather impossible for him not to when practically his only personality trait is reverence, but… what’s been the point of it, if Crowley doesn’t know?

Because Aziraphale isn’t sure that he knows. He’s not sure that, in six thousand years, he ever conveyed it quite genuinely enough. He’s not sure that Crowley ever truly got the message, or thought merely that it was an angel’s duty to give gratitude. Aziraphale is horribly, desperately uncertain that Crowley ever knew how personally he meant each and every word.

“Hey guys,” he says to break away from his thoughts as he is stood before Beelzebub and Hastur and Dagon. “Nice place you got here.” He tries to joke around like Crowley would, to sell the performance, but they shut up his babbling rather quickly.

When the creatures of Hell cry out, “Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!” Aziraphale feels a wave of dread and hatred roll over him more potent and revolting than he’s ever felt. It feels, horrifically, like justice. Like vindication. Crowley’s said before that they love him down here, but it’s clear from this smog of emotion that none of them really care who he is in the wake of Armageddon’s dissolution. Few of them probably even listened to his offenses. They just want someone to blame, someone to hang, for the crime of taking away what seemed like, to them, their one shot at recognition. Their one chance to explain in great, cutting detail what Heaven had robbed them of.

Aziraphale feels the grief crawl up his throat slow. _This_ is what Crowley has to come home to. _This_ is his eternity.

Aziraphale has realized by now that Earth has long been an escape for him. He imagines that it, too, was an escape for Crowley—an escape from the maddening wretchedness of this place.

Hell is much more like Heaven than Aziraphale ever dreamed it would be.

Crowley can’t come back here. Not to this.

 

* * *

 

Seeing the archangel Michael step into the execution chamber (not trial room, unfortunately) is chilling in a way nothing else has ever been. A little over a day ago, Heaven and Hell were primed and ready to go to war with each other in the atmosphere of a boiling, erupting Earth. Now, Dagon professes cooperation. Hastur still has the gall to call Michael “wank-wings,” but the fact that she doesn’t smite him where he stands is a testament to the truth of the situation.

Aziraphale cannot know the fear of holy water that demons know. It is lucky, then, that Crowley hasn’t shown real fear of it since he decided it would be his way out if things ever went wrong. Aziraphale doesn’t feel very lucky, though. Rather, he feels horrified. The teasing of terror that leaks from behind the plexiglass, while muted as compared to the hatred that had followed their declarations of his guilt, is enough to make Aziraphale’s stomach feel hollow. If water is enough to make these people shake and tremble, what can it do to a demon?

What was Crowley willing to do to himself?

He watches Michael pour more holy water into the bathtub than the pitcher contains—a small miracle of intimidation, to keep hold of the tentative power she possesses, even in the demons’ stronghold. The tension that burns in the room is fit to give out at this point. Behind the glass, the lesser demons snarl and howl, jerking away from the wall every time the water splashes erratically.

“That’s holy water,” he murmurs, still astonished.

“The holiest, yes.” Michael’s voice is flat. Aziraphale has never liked Michael much.

When Hastur dunks the small reptilian thing that had called the trial to session into the water, Aziraphale is treated to a front-row view of demonic obliteration. The thing melts before his eyes, disintegrated to nothing and leaving the water clear as can be in its wake, and its screams ring in his ears long after it goes quiet.

 _Oh, Crowley,_ Aziraphale thinks, grief heavy in his throat. _I think I can see why you’d rather die than spend eternity here._

When Aziraphale takes off Crowley’s coat and shirt and pants and shoes (and is this really a mirage? If he can take off parts of it, is that an illusion or not?) and gets in the tub of water and doesn’t melt into nothing, the entire atmosphere of Hell changes. The fear that had snaked between his boots and skirted wide around the bathtub is suddenly and viscerally tied to him. In the eyes of those present, he is the demon Crowley, and he is a monster.

Even Beelzebub is forced still and wavering with uncertainty, watching him play in the water. Aziraphale flicks some at the glass, a sudden desire for vindication coursing through him. He wants the demons on the other side to back off, to be afraid, to be terrified, and for a brief moment the holy water seems to sizzle around him. It cools just as quickly, and Aziraphale pointedly does not dwell on it.

“I don’t suppose that anywhere in the nine circles of Hell there’s such thing as a rubber duck?” he asks, and it comes out with more bite than he meant it. “No?”

“He’s gone native,” Beelzebub murmurs, astonished. The shock in her voice is like music to Aziraphale, and he should probably be worried about how happily he bears witness to her horror. “He isn’t one of us anymore.”

“So,” Aziraphale begins, about ready to get on with it. “You’re probably thinking: ‘If he can do this, I wonder what else he can do?’ And very, very soon, you’re all going to get the chance to find out.” Perhaps he says it with a bit more drama than is necessary, but that’s very Crowley, isn’t it?

Hastur is eager to call his bluff, but Beelzebub calls him off, and Aziraphale is thankful that she does. When Michael walks back in and sees him splashing about in the holy water, her “Oh, Lord,” is like birdsong, and Aziraphale is too enthused to be worried about this little free-trial of cruelty.

“Michael! Dude,” he crows, playing it up for his audience. “Do us a quick miracle, will you? I need a bath towel.” Seeing her conjure one quite promptly is supremely satisfying. After taking it from her, he leans over the edge of the tub and addresses the presiding demons.

“I think,” he says, “it would be better for everyone if I were to be left alone in the future. Don’t you?” He nods to prompt them, making eye contact with Beelzebub. She nods back, hesitantly, and everyone else begins to nod along too, even Michael.

When they let him go—or, rather, when he makes his way out and they neglect to stop him—he walks a tad too fast to be considered casual. When he ascends the escalator back up to Earth’s surface, it takes all he has to let it carry him as opposed to dashing up two stairs at a time. He cannot leave Hell fast enough.

Aziraphale only hopes Crowley has wormed his way out of this, too.

God, he hopes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it was really fun, writing aziraphale's ponderings about hell. hope you like it. leave a comment if you do—i really appreciate them.


	2. heaven has always been empty (of everything but duty)

When Aziraphale proposes that they swap appearances, he makes it very clear that he doesn’t mean swap _bodies_. He justifies it by saying that, if Heaven and Hell were to seek their deaths, just switching consciousnesses wouldn’t be enough. Their bodies have been soaking in the essence of a demon and an angel since the birth of man, and hellfire and holy water would still burn.

Crowley, however, knows that a mirage will not be enough to convince either side. In the same way their projections cannot be mistaken for flesh, if they are discorporated, angels and demons would see through a mirage, no matter the determined miracle which brought it about. Therefore, to make sure Aziraphale does not make a fuss, he offers to do the switch.

“What’s one more demonic miracle?” he says flippantly, waving his hands and trailing a hand down the length of a leaf of one of his grander plants. It trembles under his touch. He pretends not to notice the sweet little smile Aziraphale gives him.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale acknowledges, grateful, in that tone of voice that only he can call up. Crowley pretends his ears aren’t growing red.

“Alright, come on angel,” he prompts, distracting away from the tenderness that had lilted its way through the air, dancing between them. He steps away from the plants. “The sooner, the better, right?” He offers his hand.

“Quite,” Aziraphale agrees, taking it. Crowley focuses, willing his essence to bend to his desires. Not only does he switch their consciousnesses, but he also switches the placements of their bodies, one atom a time, creeping from their hands up their arms, all to give the illusion that he’s creating a mirage overlapping their own forms. Aziraphale would notice if he cared to check, but he just stands there and watches. The tenderness in his eyes does not fade until sunglasses overlap them, and by then they are no longer Aziraphale’s eyes anymore.

It’s not often that he looks at himself in the mirror, but Crowley never really enjoys it. As much as he dresses his body and styles his hair to be beautiful, he’s never liked looking at himself for too long, especially not in the eyes. Seeing those eyes with another man’s thoughts and intentions behind them is unnerving, and he looks away, unable to watch any longer.

He instead looks down at his (Aziraphale’s) hands. They’re stubbier than his, and rounder. The skin is… soft. Crowley realizes that, for all the handshakes they’ve shared, and the lingering touches, he’s never noticed just how soft Aziraphale is. He’s like silk. Like holy.

When he makes to leave the house, Crowley knows that he hasn’t been kicked out. He’s heading out of his own accord, leaving his plants and his halls to Aziraphale’s loving care (maybe a bit _too_ loving, in the plants’ cases, he’ll have to do a bit of damage control when he gets back) and it’ll all be fine.

It doesn’t stop him from feeling a bit like he’s leaving something behind, though.

Aziraphale’s skin is too tight for him. Too cherished.

* * *

The angels are surprisingly efficient at kidnapping, when they come for him.

Aziraphale doesn’t notice he’s been taken, at first, and he can’t help but make these pathetic, muffled little noises through the tape in a vain effort to get his attention. Aziraphale, in Crowley’s clothes, turns to look for him and when he notices what’s happening, _screams_ in horror. He dashes forward, trying to get him back.

Crowley knows that they did this, wore each other’s figures, expressly for the time that head office would call them in for their punishment. That doesn’t stop it from being genuinely terrifying, however, when Hastur clocks Aziraphale on the head with a crowbar and Crowley is forced to watch as he slumps to the ground.

He’s tempted to break his bonds and lunge for Aziraphale. He’s _really_ tempted to. But it’s not something Aziraphale would do, so he can’t, because they can’t screw this up. It would damn them both, permanently. Painfully.

So he lets himself be dragged off, Uriel and Sandalphon watching him all the way.

They tie him down by his wrists to an office chair. The metal armrest digs into his (Aziraphale’s) arm. He’s surprised they don’t bind his feet as well—but it’s a rolling chair, so that would probably be awkward. Why did they tie him down to a rolling chair again? Crowley gets the almost unbearable urge to shuffle away. It’s squashed when he sees Uriel and Sandalphon’s eyes flick upward, and he hears footsteps approaching him from behind.

“Ah!” A voice calls, false cheer thick on its tongue. Gabriel. “Aziraphale. So glad you could join us.” As he approaches, Gabriel squeezes Crowley’s shoulder, and if they wouldn’t have seen through a mirage before they definitely would now. The body switch was necessary.

“You could have just sent a message,” Crowley says, his voice pleasant only by strict self-control. He has to act as Aziraphale would. He has to, he has to. “I mean, a kidnapping—in broad daylight.”

“Call it what it was: an extraordinary rendition.” Gabriel’s voice has always sounded like he says everything through gritted teeth, even since the beginning. Crowley doubts there’s a genuine atom in his form, with human vessel or without. Gabriel chuckles, and Crowley wishes vehemently that he could rip the vocal chords from his throat. “Now, have we heard from our new associate?” Gabriel addresses Uriel and Sandalphon, but he doesn’t turn away.

“He’s on his way,” Uriel replies, and a cold dread settles in Crowley’s gut. He has an idea as to what that means. He does not want his idea to be correct.

“He’s on his way.” Gabriel grins, a menacing thing. It’s far too cruel an expression to be present on an angel’s face. “I think you’re gonna like this.” Gabriel approaches him, slowly, his footsteps echoing in the vast chamber of the room. “I really do. And I bet you didn’t see this one coming.”

There’s a cold, vindictive light in Gabriel’s eyes. None of Hell’s demons look anything like this. Everyone down there is hot and fuming; everyone’s temper is just this shy of boiling over. There’s a burning current of drive, of vengeance, bright and vivid and down there, it’s alive. Call Hell what you want, but at least the people there are genuine. Every drop of hatred in their body is genuine. Every bit of sadistic glee is real and hot and spiking, in every body that stumbles along Hell’s passageways. It’s dark and damp and disgusting, yes, and for all the stereotypes it is _cold_ , but the _people_ —the _people_ could heat the world with their fire.

Heaven is much colder than Hell.

Crowley has been here before. He was born here, way back in the beginning, and he spent a good time here while the universe was being built. It was only around the time of Earth’s formation that he fell, and he didn’t mean to fall, not really. But Heaven had always made his footsteps echo, for how far the distance was between him and everyone else. Between everyone and everyone, really—he’s sure that no one up there has ever made a real, true friend. He’s sure no one has even had anything to talk about with a friend. They’re like machines, all of them, duty their primary objective.

Heaven is a gaping, hollow, serrated thing. Humans speak of it with reverence, praise its light and harmony. But it has never been a kind place and it has never been a warm place and the only harmony it’s begotten is the clockwork schedule that all the angels follow, precise and to the letter. Heaven has always been a gaping maw and the air in it tense and judging, and Crowley hates hell but he _despises_ Heaven. 

Hell is awful, yes, but Heaven is worse.

If the Almighty really wanted it to turn out this way, she wanted all those angels to fall in the beginning. Crowley had begun hanging around those who would become the fallen because they were vibrant; they had wants, and likes, and dislikes. They were _interesting_. They weren’t necessarily pure. They were so _bright_ , and Crowley wanted that brightness—he wanted something real, something that wasn’t unblemished white, something that didn’t echo and didn’t yawn with distance. Something that is blinding in a way Heaven could never be. Something yellow or golden, something warm and singing. If God really wanted him to fall, she wanted Crowley to learn to live, vivid and golden.

If God really wanted him to fall, she didn’t want the angels to be machines for eternity.

But falling _hurt_ , and the demons Crowley fell alongside were very quick to turn bitter. What had once been a little community of life he had found soon became a festering thing, a dark and bottomless pit of loathing. From the fallen arose Hell as antithesis to Heaven, but they’ve never been opposites. They’ve been mirror images since the beginning. Two suffocating homes, cruel as anything.

Crowley never wants to go back to Hell. He’s never wanted to come back to Heaven, either, and by God does he never want Aziraphale to have to come back here either.

* * *

When the demon enters the room, Gabriel’s face twists in visible disgust. Uriel and Sandalphon have more self-control than that, fortunately, and Crowley would be amused if he were not preoccupied with the healthy amount of horror that is presently dissolving his insides.

The swirling, growing spout of hellfire that the demon lights is enough to make the angels jerk away. They can surely feel the heat of it, though it does not register much to Crowley. Here, he lets some of the Aziraphale mask slide away. The disdain he feels for this whole situation is almost too much at this point. He really, really wants to get it all over with.

An inkling of dread creeps at the back of his neck, though. Aziraphale’s argument that their vessels might not be able to take exposure to holy water or hellfire makes more sense than Crowley’s willing to acknowledge, and he hopes that this doesn’t kill him. It probably won’t, if the body reacts—it’ll probably just kill the flesh, and his essence would be left to deal with the fallout. He hopes nonetheless.

Uriel frees him of his bonds before his execution, an action Crowley didn’t foresee. Even labeled a traitor, the angels still have expectations of Aziraphale. Even though he averted all of Armageddon, Heaven still believes he’ll follow orders.

Crowley desperately wants to run, just to see what they’d make of it. He doesn’t, though. The point of this is to get them to leave well enough alone, not instigate a manhunt.

“I don’t suppose I can persuade you to reconsider?” Crowley says, straightening his (Aziraphale’s) clothes and tie. The plea is futile and he knows it. It’s the only reason he lets it leave his lips. “We’re meant to be the good guys, for Heaven’s sake.”

“Well, for _Heaven’s_ sake, we are meant to make examples out of traitors.” Oh, how Crowley wishes to punch Gabriel’s lights out. “So. Into the flame.”

Crowley sets his jaw, looking away from the angels. He’s not afraid of this. Hellfire is like a warm bath to him. But he’s nervous, just a little, that it won’t be to this body. If nothing else, Aziraphale would be disappointed to lose it again so soon, and that’s enough to make the hesitance in Crowley’s step genuine.

“Right.” He stops, just before the flames, and turns back toward Gabriel. “Well. Lovely knowing you all. May we meet on a better occasion.” The smile that he lets crease his face is genuinely sweet, and Crowley thinks this bit here is his finest work of the hour—one last burst of _Aziraphale_ to sell the performance.

“Shut your stupid mouth, and die already.” Gabriel smiles, the frustration dancing in his eyes. Oh, _definitely_ Crowley’s best work. Without question.

The satisfaction doesn’t quite spread in him, though.

All the Aziraphale falls from Crowley’s face as he meets Gabriel’s eyes, and steps into the fire.

Aziraphale’s body does not burn, and Crowley almost falls to his knees and thanks whatever he can that it doesn’t. Instead, he just lets his head fall back, enjoying the warmth. He cracks his neck once, twice, just a small intimidation. Just to put the angels off a bit. He can practically _hear_ their confusion and growing horror, and it is _delicious_.

 _Ah, there’s the satisfaction,_ he thinks, and breathes fire at the angels to watch them jump.

Very satisfying, indeed.

* * *

They meet back up in a park, and Crowley thinks he’ll never again be so relieved to see his own face.

“Do you think they’ll leave us alone now?” he asks, lounging back against the park bench in a way Aziraphale never would. It doesn’t matter much that he keep up the act now, and sitting so primly had gotten tiring after a while.

“At a guess, they’ll pretend it never happened,” Aziraphale says, and there’s a beat. “Right. Anyone looking?”

Crowley checks briefly, probing into the nearby celestial space for any onlookers. “Nobody. Right. Swap back, then?” He offers his hand, looking Aziraphale in the eyes.

He performs the switch back the same way he’d switched them initially: atom by atom, consciousness finding home in the right vessel and vessels on a new side of the bench. It doesn’t matter, really, that he keep up the charade of the switch being a mirage, but—and Crowley would never admit this aloud—he fears Aziraphale would be upset with him.

He looks away as soon as Aziraphale’s eyes are his own, letting go and opening and closing his hand, getting used to the scrape of his own dry skin again. His flesh finally doesn’t feel too tight. It’s a release he hadn’t been quite conscious he’d needed. Beside him, he hears Aziraphale shudder, a little huff escaping him. It must have been as unnerving for him as it was for Crowley.

If he looked, he’d see an unsettled expression on Aziraphale’s face. He’d notice the way Aziraphale adjusts his collar and his cuffs is lingering, is tentative, and maybe he’d piece together that Aziraphale had caught on along the way. A mirage could never be quite so lifelike, after all.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he lets Aziraphale talk about making Michael miracle him a towel, and he laughs, and it’s a real laugh. It’s a good one.

Crowley is happy, truly, to have his feet (his own feet) back on Earth. He’s happier that Aziraphale is with him, and he’s ecstatic that Agnes Nutter was right.

Happiness is still a little foreign to him. Maybe it always will be.

As long as he and Aziraphale don’t have to go back to where they started, though… maybe, just maybe, he’ll have the chance to feel a little more like it fits: Crowley, happy.

Just maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woo hoo if you've made it this far!! crowley's bit was a tad harder to write, dunno why. i still like it. leave a comment if you, too, like it.


	3. the future is dread but i bear it with you

When Crowley switches them back, Aziraphale pays attention where he hadn’t before. This time, he feels the switch of the atoms, and the tilt of their consciousnesses.

He wants to be angry. They could have _died_ , their vessels could have been melted and burned and they would have to deal with the fallout of trying to play two separate legions of warriors for fools. If things hadn’t worked out, they’d be damned, quite literally and quite permanently and—

And. Crowley is looking into his eyes as they switch, and there’s something almost pleading there. Aziraphale doesn’t know why or what for or even if it matters, but it breaks down any anger he might have felt.

It’s over now. He looks away from Crowley and shakes out his body and adjusts his clothes. Everything’s passed, and everything worked out. There’s no real reason to fuss over white lies, especially not when Aziraphale knows why Crowley did it—as if a mirage could ever fool Beelzebub. Gabriel. He was foolish to ever imagine it could.

Sometimes, Crowley is a lot more wise than he is. Just sometimes.

Aziraphale thinks, briefly, about what he had felt in Hell. Of the little hints of cruelty that had wormed their way in. It makes even more sense that Crowley had truly swapped their bodies with that puzzle piece; the cruel tint to Crowley’s chemistry must have given Aziraphale that brief capacity for hate. Yes, that’s it. That must be it.

The holy water sizzled a little, after all, and that couldn’t have been him.

“I asked them for a rubber duck,” he tells Crowley in faux confidence, to distract himself from the thought. “I made the archangel Michael miracle me a towel!” He chuckles, and Crowley laughs, head tilted back.

“They’ll leave us alone. For a bit,” Crowley says, looking off in the vague direction of the people walking about the park. Then he sucks in a long breath and turns to look at him. “If you ask me, both sides are going to use this as breathing space before the big one.”

This gives Aziraphale pause. “I thought that was the big one,” he says, looking at Crowley in slow alarm.

“No, for my money, the really big one is all of us against all of them.” He jerks his head toward the park at large, and Aziraphale feels his stomach turn at the implication.

“What?” he breathes. “Heaven and Hell against… humanity?” They turn away from each other, and a tendril of dread creeps up into Aziraphale’s throat.

It makes a horrible, awful amount of sense. Aziraphale wishes desperately that he didn’t agree with Crowley so completely. He does, though. Heaven and Hell are far too similar for their own good, and humanity far too vivid. It’s easy to see how, eventually, the human race might cease to be the push-and-pull between Heaven and Hell. It’s easy to see it might become a catalyst for their reconciliation, after the fall had separated them, and it’s easy to see it might already be happening. Michael had provided the means of his (Crowley’s) execution, after all. Maybe she’s the start of it.

“Right. Time to leave the garden.” Aziraphale is shaken back to the present when Crowley speaks again. “Let me tempt you to a spot of lunch?”

The offer is a relief Aziraphale didn’t know how to ask for.

“Temptation accomplished,” he concedes, and they stand together. “What about the Ritz? I believe a table for two has just _miraculously_ come free.”

Sitting next to him in the Ritz, Aziraphale regards Crowley and recalls that vibrance he’d caught a glimpse of, down in Hell. For a demon, Crowley isn’t as bitter as the rest. He’s not filled with so much rage and spite it’s like he’s melting from the inside out. It’s like… well, it’s like he hasn’t festered quite as long as the rest of them.

And he hasn’t, has he? Haven’t he and Aziraphale spent over six thousand years on Earth? Crowley isn’t like them because he hasn’t had the chance to stew. Instead, he’s spend the better part of his immortal life among humans, alongside Aziraphale—and isn’t he so markedly different from the other angels, too.

That something vibrant that had made the fallen fall is still alive and sparking in Crowley. This comes to Aziraphale plainly, truthfully, and he knows he’s right. After all these years puttering about on Earth, spending so much time among humans it’s as though he’s one of them, that spark of brightness is still strong in everything he does and says.

That vibrance is eerily human. Aziraphale wonders suddenly, hesitantly, if humans were the kind of people that the fallen were always meant to be.

 _No use dwelling on it,_ he thinks hastily, the tragedy of the thought filling his gut with the most awful heat. _No use at all._

“I like to think none of this would have worked out if you weren’t, at heart, just a little bit a good person,” he says, looking Crowley in the eyes, and he believes it, wholeheartedly. Crowley is good, and he means to be good, no matter how many times he insists he’s a demon and he can’t be. He is. He always has been.

“And if you weren’t, deep down, just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing.” Crowley smirks at him, and Aziraphale smiles bashfully. Maybe it’s true. Maybe it isn’t. The feeling behind it, the swelling of adoration that Aziraphale feels emanating from Crowley—has felt from him, for years and years and years now—is truth enough.

“Cheers,” Crowley prompts. “To the world.”

A fitting toast, really.

“To the _world_ ,” Aziraphale says, and it means a lot more than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the end, folks. thank you for reading. i loved writing this piece, and i hope you liked reading it. please leave a comment if you did.


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